Deadlines

Send comments or corrections (only for the HTML version of this file) to Doug Massey ([email protected]).

You can receive a copy of this file via E-mail by sending your local Judge a message with "get deadlines" in the body.

Unless otherwise specified, orders will be processed on the following schedule:

Moves clock 1410 min 12.00 next 72.00 grace 168.00 delay 0.50 days --TWTF-
Retreat clock -1 min 0.00 next 24.00 grace 72.00 delay 0.50 days --TWTF-
Adjust clock -1 min 0.00 next 24.00 grace 72.00 delay 0.50 days --TWTF-

The parameters are as follows:

clock:

If non-negative, indicates the minutes past midnight to which the initial deadline will be set. 1410 is eleven thirty pm.

min:

Indicates the minimum number of hours that can elapse between the previous phase and the new phase. Thus, in the above example, there will be at least 12 hours after a build or retreat phase before the movement orders will be processed. This parameter has no real use other than to prevent a runaway situation if all of the powers in a game were to go CD.

next:

Indicates the number of hours after the previous phase is processed that the new deadline will be set. This may be increased to fit into the values of the clock and/or days parameters. In the default case, movement orders are three days after the previous phase. However, because of the setting of days, if this falls on a weekend it will slide to Tuesday.

grace:

Indicates the number of hours the deadline will be extended if not everyone has gotten their orders in yet. In the default case, a grace period of one week after the initial deadline is allowed. When the deadline comes up, a reminder message will be sent to everyone who hasn't gotten their orders in and a notice will be sent to the other players and observers in the game indicating who is late. The reminder will then be sent to the late parties every day. If orders have still not been received within 24 hours of the grace period, a notice will be sent to all players and observers in that game indicating that the late power has been abandoned. Abandoned powers may be taken over by anyone not already playing a power in the game merely by signing on with any password. If orders are still not received before the grace period expires, that power will be marked "Civil Disorder" and the phase will be processed with incomplete orders. On subsequent phases powers marked CD will not be considered when deciding whether the deadline should slide. When a valid signon is received, the CD and/or abandonded status will be cleared.

delay:

Indicates the number of hours after the last required orders have been received before the orders will be processed. The default for this is set such that if all powers get their orders in before the deadline, the orders will be processed one half hour later. This gives people a little time to change their mind after orders are submitted.

days:

Specifies which days of the week are valid for the setting of the initial deadline. If the STRICTGRACE flag is enabled, this has no effect on the sliding of the deadline as specified by grace or delay. By default, games are NoSTRICTGRACE, meaning that the indicated days also specify which days of the week are valid for deadlines set by the grace or delay parameters. An uppercase letter indicates that that day of the week is okay. If the letter is lowercase, then the deadline is delayed until after noon. A dash indicates that the deadline cannot fall on that day of the week.

SET MOVES NEXT 48.0 DELAY 1.0

SET BUILDS DELAY 1.0

In addition, the following commands can be used to affect the current phase only:

SET DEADLINE date (Affects the sending of the reminder.)

SET GRACE date (Affects the limit on determining who goes CD.)

SET START date (Affects the earliest orders will be processed.)

SET WAIT (Per user, specifies that orders should not be

SET NOWAIT or should be processed before the DEADLINE.)

The dates in the above commands can be any combination of the three letter abbreviation for the month, a day of the month, or hour-colon- minute. Any SET command except for SET PASSWORD, SET WAIT and SET NOWAIT will generate a message that will be sent to all people involved in the game indicating that you've been mucking around with the game parameters. Everyone active in the game should agree before deadlines are adjusted. Note, all times are based on the time zone of the adjudicator.

Orders can be sent in anytime before the deadline. If multiple movement orders are received for the same unit, the most recent one received will override the earlier one. Attempting to build or debuild too many units during the adjustments phase will cause the earliest received build/debuild requests to be ignored. Thus you can send in preliminary movement orders immediately and then send in revised orders after you change your mind from diplomatic talks. Beware, though, that if everyone gets their orders in before the deadline, the orders may be processed before you have a chance to get your revised orders in. If you toss a SET WAIT command into your orders, you can avoid having your orders processed before the deadline. When you've decided that your orders are final, you can send in a message with a SET NOWAIT command to allow the orders to be processed as soon as the delay period expires and everyone else has their orders in.

If the reply mail to any order indicates that there was an error or you have a unit that you did not supply an order for or you didn't explicitly specify all your builds, debuilds or retreats, the flag indicating that your orders have been received will not be set. Note that all builds must be specified or explicitly "waived" before the adjudicator will consider your build orders complete unless it is impossible to build all units (eg: five supply centers taken in a single year or no vacant home centers). An error-free set of orders will be required to set the "has submitted orders" status. If no error free orders have been received by the time the grace period expires, the partial orders will be processed and the CD status will be set for your power. See the discussion on grace periods above for more info on what happens when you miss a deadline and taking over abandoned powers.

The commands:

SET NONMR

SET NMR

can be used to set and clear a flag that forces the adjudicator to wait until someone takes over an abandoned power before orders will be processed. This prevents a "No Moves Received" status for a power in CD so that the game doesn't get lopsided when one power takes over a defenseless neighbor. The adjudicator will send out a reminder every 48 hours that it is waiting for someone to take over the abandoned power(s) while the NONMR flag is set.

There are penalties for missing deadlines. The judge attempts to keep track of how dedicated you are to the game on the following schedule:

+3 points for getting your orders in on time.

-1 point for each "deadline missed" reminder the judge sends you.

-50 points for becoming abandoned.

-100 points for missing the grace period and going CD.

There is no penalty for resigning before a deadline or if you submit complete orders before you resign. However, you will continue to receive the -1 point penalty every day that your power remains abandoned after the deadline. If your power goes CD after you've resigned without anyone else taking the power over, you will receive the CD penalty as well (this is to discourage you from resigning when you're down to a few units which could be used to affect the final outcome of the game, but you've just lost interest). Your rating on this scale is displayed by the "list" command. Certain games can be designated "only for dedicated players" with the command:

set dedication -10

to prevent anyone with a dedication of less than negative 10 from signing on. Of course, if a game had a dedication setting greater than zero, you would have to "prove yourself" in prior games before you could sign on or take over an abandoned power in that game.